The Supreme Court published its ruling Tuesday evening rejecting a “Peace Now” petition that claimed discrimination in the way land is allocated in Judea and Samaria.
The far-left organization demanded territories be granted to Palestinian Authority citizens in the city of Efrat.
The panel of judges in the Supreme Court was led by President Esther Hayut.
As part of the legal process, the state proposed that the Palestinian Authority citizens could submit a request for allocation of land in a 51 dunam complex in the area designated for the neighborhood. However, representatives of Peace Now rejected the proposal and called it “not even a Band-Aid on the systemic discrimination.”
The petition submitted on behalf of 13 residents of the Palestinian Authority city of Bethlehem demanded the state allocate land in the area of a future neighborhood in the city of Efrat — the Givat Eitam neighborhood — claiming that the state discriminates against Palestinian Authority Arabs in the way the land is allocated.
The Court was not convinced, and in the ruling stated that since Peace Now “actually denies that these are state lands, there is no point in discussing the size of the area intended for allocation.”
Avraham Binyamin, director of the policy department in the Regavim watchdog organization, said, “The far-left organizations are trying to torpedo settlement development on the one hand, and promote the Palestinian takeover of Judea and Samaria on the way to a Palestinian state, on the other hand — and on the way there, they are ready to harm the State of Israel, as all the means are valid as far as they are concerned.
“The High Court did reject the spiteful petition, but the state is standing on a slippery slope by declaring that it will agree to allocate land to the petitioners nearby without any justification,” Binyamin added.
“The Peace Now campaign against the establishment of the Givat Eitam neighborhood is riddled with distortions and we are glad the absolute majority of the Israeli public understands this,” he said.
